Particle Physics
by Morgan72uk
Summary: Three points of view on the complicated state of affairs between House, Wilson and Cuddy. The Dean of Medicine gets the last word, 'she thinks she may have lost control of this situation somewhere along the line.'
1. The Oncologist

Title: Particle Physics

Author: Morgan72uk

Summary: She isn't anything like the women he marries.

Pairing: House / Cuddy /Wilson

Rating: T

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, please don't sue

A/N - so I'm not exactly sure where this came from - but I figured after wandering in the House & Cuddy direction I needed to write something complicated - and complicated means Wilson / Cuddy / House

**Particle Physics**

She isn't anything like the women he marries. They are sweet and soft and clingy – which is what he likes about them, whereas she is all hard angles and brisk, powerful manoeuvrings.

His wives do lunch and charity work, while she moves around the hospital - seeing and hearing everything, passing through departments, including his, in a bustle of high heels and tight skirts. She leaves praise and scorn in her wake – and the scent of flowers lingers in the corridors she has passed through. But it's difficult to concentrate on her omniscience when her hair slithers seductively down her back and all he can think about is what it will feel like wrapped around his hands or sliding over his chest.

He is nothing like the men who court her. They are powerful corporate types, brimming with self-importance. They buzz around her like moths to a flame until she dismisses them with careless gestures the moment they demand more of her then she can give, the moment they threaten to distract her from running the hospital.

It would be easier if she were a bitch, if she were only a bitch. But for all the times he's seen her face down someone unwise enough to get in her way, there are also all the times he's seen her upset over the loss of a patient, all the times when a colleague has gone to her with their problems and received advice as well as sympathy. It would be easier if he didn't know that sometimes she cares too much.

He knows he wants her, knows that his many fantasies about her are because she represents something dangerous that he can't predict or control, something he doesn't want to be able to control. But he is too astute not to acknowledge that might not be the only reason. It might just be that he wants her because House does too.

He doesn't believe his friend's denials, doesn't believe that the line between love and hate, or lust and hate at least, is a heavily guarded border crossing. He has watched House watch her and he doesn't think all that interest is purely academic. There are levels of competition in their friendship, they bet on sports, sometimes on patients – but they don't bet about her. Still, just once he'd like to be the one who has something House covets.

He knows things about her House does not. His role as her sometime co-conspirator gives him access to her in the smoky, late night quiet. They have spent many an evening together, ensconced in her office, plotting and planning and there are even times when the subject of their scheming is not a wayward diagnostician. He's seen her low and vulnerable and tried to persuade her to let him pick up the pieces, put her back together. One night too much maudlin conversation, washed down with very good scotch found them sprawled on her couch, sharing heated, urgent kisses – before a modicum of sense returned and one of them remembered who they were and why this was a bad idea.

When he lies in bed not making love to his wife he thinks about that night; about the heat of her mouth, about the way she felt arching beneath him, about the curve of her breast against his palm. And in the morning he goes to work, where he watches her out of the corner of his eye and wonders if she ever regrets that she stopped him.


	2. The Diagnostician

A/N - thanks for the feedback for part 1 - it was much appreciated.

**The Diagnostician**

She's like salt in his wounds – a sharp, clean sting, which can still take his breath away. The counterpoint of pleasure and pain is hedged in by the irony that she was, at least in part, responsible for those wounds in the first place.

Her rules and limits are a constant source of torment – the analogy 'a bitter pill' rattles around in his head when he thinks about her. But his relationship with pills is the most significant in his life, so he is reluctant to equate his love hate relationship with Vicodin to the way he feels about her.

The tight suits and low cut blouses, the sway of her hips and the way her legs look in heels are decent enough compensations – but the material for his fantasies doesn't entirely off set her role as his own, personal demon. Of course, it goes without saying that his own, personal demon would be hot as hell and that he'd leap at the chance to screw her – if he could leap.

She's nothing at all like Cameron – keeping her idealism firmly in check, only rarely allowing things to get personal, fighting dirty when she has to. And sometimes she's a little too like Stacy – determined, sceptical, more than capable of arguing her corner, seldom surprised by the lengths he goes to. Yet really she isn't like Stacy at all, because Stacy left.

He likes her willingness to fight back. He thinks she realises that their sparring is one of the few things he allows himself to enjoy, although neither of them will ever admit that. His favourite moments are those when he walks away, having got the last word, leaving her open-mouthed in shock by something outrageous he has said.

Of course, she's competitive enough to refuse to let him get the last word every time and he's not stupid enough to fail to appreciate the way she looks when she wins. The glittering eyes, tiny smirk, the added sway to her hips are images that imprint themselves on his brain, revisiting him at the most inconvenient moments. In a hospital full of people he mostly ignores, she has an irritating ability to make him notice her.

He finds it amusing that his colleagues so readily believe the fiction that at some point they slept together. Which isn't to say that it won't become a reality, someday. He thinks about that in terms of 'when' not 'if' and the tension shimmers between them like the air on a hot day.

He has been fanning the flames of the rumour – without really thinking about the consequences. It's interesting that she hasn't called him on it, hasn't told him to shut the hell up,that her response is to watch him with an enigmatic expression. It's interesting that she has started spending time with Wilson behind the closed blinds of her office. It's even slightly interesting that he minds.

He thinks she's too careful to get drawn into an affair. Which isn't to say she's immune to Wilson's charms – it's more that he doesn't believe she would be comfortable with the aftermath and he's not even sure that James would be.

But, if James wants her what then? He isn't sure what he'd do in that situation. He could step aside, like good friend. Or would a 'good friend' make the point that a married man should probably avoid getting involved with his boss? He could make a move himself, transform that theoretical 'when' into an actual one and tell himself he was doing it to protect James. But that wouldn't be entirely true. He isn't good at doing things for other people – not even for James.

He wants her – which is a complicated, difficult admission. When he closes his eyes he can see her, sprawled in his bed, hair a hopeless tangle, body limp from pleasure and probably about to say something sarcastic.

He sighs, fishes a bottle out of his pocket and swallows a pill, all the time thinking that now he has clarified the diagnosis, there is really only one cure for the malady that ails him.

Physician, heal thyself.


	3. The Dean of Medicine

A/N - thanks for reading! I am not entirely sure where this chapter came from. I think my inner Cuddy has a little too much time on her hands!

**The Dean of Medicine**

She thinks she may have lost control of this situation somewhere along the line – even though she isn't sure when, or how it happened. She doesn't like uncertainty so it's, troubling that she can't see a way out of this without damage. But it's even more troubling that she is not sure she wants there to be one.

She isn't used to finding herself in the middle of a tangled web of emotions. You can't be in as much of a hurry as she was – as she still is – and not leave something behind. In her case it is relationships – something she has never regretted, doesn't even regret now. There have always been men, if she wants them, although often it's not the wanting that is the problem. It's what comes afterwards that she has trouble with. But surely it shouldn't be this complicated, shouldn't resemble a minefield where one wrong step in either direction could bring disaster?

It feels like a particularly absorbing game of chess, with players who match each other in skill, flair and strategy. Every move brings either defeat or victory closer – the denouement impossible to predict until the very last moment. And this would be a highly relevant simile if it weren't for the fact that this game is being played out by three people, not two. And actually, it isn't a game at all.

She knows what James wants from her – she can see it in the fleeting moments when their eyes meet. He touches her sometimes, when no one else is there to see; a soft, lingering sensation, his fingertips brushing her hair, or her cheek – making her shiver. And for reasons that she does not entirely understand it is not quite enough.

But they could so easily fall headlong into an affair; tumble over the precipice together, as they have almost done once already. But she pulled back – because she doesn't want to be another of the women he accidentally falls in love with, because she isn't sure if he wants to make love to her, or the idea of her, because she doesn't want to see the expression in House's eyes if he were to find out.

But that isn't a train of thought she is comfortable with – because it is safer to believe that House isn't interested in her except as an occasional sparring partner, a source of vicodin and as the person who manages the consequences of his more extreme behaviour. Life has taught her that it would be foolish to attribute anything to the heated glances he throws her way, or take his frequent comments about her body even remotely seriously. She knows that biological reactions are not something you base decisions on. But there are moments when something she doesn't recognise flares between them, so strong it leaves scorch marks in its wake, and she can't decide whether to be intrigued or terrified by that.

She isn't like Stacy, who comes trailing the baggage of their past love and that final betrayal, or like Cameron who looks at him with the tattered remnants of hope in her eyes. Though she would prefer not to admit it, she is astute enough to understand that might be the point, that whatever she has left to offer him might be exactly what he needs.

It is clear that what she ought to do is find a nice, uncomplicated man to fall in love with. Someone who has nothing to do with the hospital, who will make her take holidays, eat at reasonable hours and persuade her to do something other than work at the weekend. But she doesn't know anyone like that and she is not sure that she would know how to deal with them if she did.

She's never been a gambler, and she has no intention of becoming one now. But, sometimes she thinks the solution to this is a starkly simple one. Toss a coin – heads House, tails Wilson and hope everything else comes out in the wash. In reality she knows behaving in such a way is absurd, like trying to make a decision between the devil and the deep blue sea. On other occasions she wonders if there is a way to just give up, to walk away from this with her dignity and her self-respect intact. But the truth is every choice has consequences and even choosing not to make a choice comes with a price.

So as it turns out the chess motif might be relevant after all – because if it is a game between Wilson and House, then perhaps the black queen can simply leave them to fight it out, wait to see who places her in check?

She smiles at the thought, because though she may not like it the one thing she is sure of is that in this game the next move is hers. And if it really is chess they are playing, albeit a seriously screwed up version, then she needs to work out which of the white pieces will serve her ends better – should she take the knight or the king?

The End


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